A practical exposition of the X. Commandments with a resolution of several momentous questions…A practical exposition of the X. Commandements with a resolution of several momentous questions…

The Second instance is from Judges 17. where you will find that that Idol, which Micah made is not by him or his Mother accounted God, but is made use of by them, as they think, for furthering them in Gods service, as appeareth, 1. From this, that it getteth not the name of any strange god. 2. That he seeketh a Levite for a Priest to it, and promiseth to himself Gods blessing from that, not that the Idol would bless him, but Jehovah, ver. 13. 3. That it is said, the Priest asked counsel of Jehovah for the Danites, Judges 18.6.

The Third instance is that of Jeroboam, who did sin and made Israel to sin, by the Calf he set up at Dan and Bethel, that they were not intended to be worshipped as Idols, for themselves, but as means, whereby they might be helped to worship the true God, may appear, 1. From Jeroboam's motive, which was not to divert the people from the true God, at least as he supposed, or to make them alter their God, but to alter their manner of worship, and to divert them from going up to Jerusalem to worship, from which his fear of their revolt to Rehoboam arose; hence the Calves are not provided to prevent worshipping of God, but are put in place of their going up to Jerusalem; as the colour of reason pretended by him for this alteration showeth; and so one service is ⟨p. 64⟩put for another, without changing their God, and all the reproofs that his sins meeteth with from the Prophets run at this, that he altered the manner of Gods worship in putting up new signs in new places, and appointing new sacrifices and Priests. 2. It appeareth from this, that as it was distinct from that way of serving God, which was in Judah, so was it from the way of the Heathens, yea from the way used by such idolatrous Kings as Ahab, who are said to do worse; because they did set up strange gods (which the Calves are not called) and Baalim; and Jehu when he destroyed the false Gods, yet he retained this manner of Worship; and there were no cause to discriminate Jeroboam's sin from Achabs, or to look upon it as any thing lesser, if all the difference had been only in the change of worshipping the image of one Idol into the worshipping of the image of another, but the difference was in this, that the one worshipped the true God in these images, the other Idols indeed. 3. Hence there was still some knowledge of God in that land, and Prophets sometimes sent them by the Lord, yea when they were led captive, and others sent into their place, it is said